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Thursday, January 5, 2012

New fraud hotline for tips about public schools

From the PG:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12005/1201570-100.stm

The hotline is aimed at obtaining tips about "spending irregularities, corruption in the contract and bidding process, theft and embezzlement of district funds, and bribery, kickbacks or other forms of illegal collusion with outside vendors" by schools.

15 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Look out Mark Campbell, they're gonna get you and your twice as much $$$ Macs that are running Windows7!? Or your 10 million dollar Xerox contract that has your computer people still doing 75% of the work.

On another post Anonymous wrote "Follow the money trail, for every new program implemented using the grant money on outside consultants that runs for so many years [name deleted] gets a kickback. I did not believe it, but think about it. I was told this by some one from A+ schools, but they will not go public with it."

Certainly the unique arrangement where Solicitor Ira Weiss has expanded his statutory authority to bypass public action on contracts to run them through his billing is worthy of exploration by the hotline.

It's been almost two years since Ira commissioned the Andrews International study of school safety.

At a price tag exceeding $38,000, this certainly needed a public vote. Members of the public will find no such record.

In the interim, all that we know is that Roosevelt/Lane/Fischetti/Weiss have returned the report to Andrews with their suggested changes at least three times.

The operative phrase around here is "Ira Money."

Don't fret taxpayers, it's actually your money, you just don't even get disclosure on how it's spent.

I find it curious that this hotline popped up out of nowhere. There has been little to no reporting about fraud and the school districts in this area. We know it exsists, but ignored in the past. Does this tie into the tax issue, selling property, Broad, Gates, PPS, another district?

Can someone call the tip line and request the superintendent and her staff publish the entire Organizational chart for the administration at Bellefield including salaries? Isn't that public information?

It would help point out how much money is being waisted starting at the top.

The CFO had concerns regarding many financial matters, however was not "In the loop". All if not most C- level people that left over the past few years were questioning the direction and had grave concerns about the direction of the district. Roosevelt & Lane have no use or logic or competence in executive positions, it points out problems and waste that they would rather sweep under the rug.